This article examines processes of (de-) politicization among Egyptian student activists in the post-2011 context. Based on ethnographic observation, interviews and focus groups, I argue that the rapid and successive political changes – with the revolution in 2011 then the coup d’état in 2013 – made the boundaries separating institutional, contentious and prefigurative politics fluid. As student activists debated if their claims and activities were ‘student-related’ or ‘political’, several conceptions of politics and political action coexisted among them and their understanding of politics fluctuated. These evolving conceptions created gaps and contradictions allowing for the negotiation of the meaning of their various activities. The negotiation of politics is a collective pattern but was also reflected in, and reflective of evolving individual subjectivities. As young students lived through the revolution, entered university and joined or left a group, their perceptions of their roles and of the political meaning of their present and past activities changed. The rising repression in 2013/14 shaped the activists’ tactics, as well as their perceived priorities and the meaning of activities, thus amplifying the negotiation of politics.